ehm
/əm/
"ehm" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ehm” is uncommon English (frequency #64,347 among 18,836 “E” headwords), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #64,347
- frequency rank, English
- 18,836
- “E” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - um, er expressing hesitation
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ehm |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /əm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #64,347 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ehm” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
ehm is uncommon English at frequency #64,347 among 18,836 “E” headwords, classed as aninterjection, transcribed /əm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "um, er expressing hesitation".
No generated misspelling entries exist for ehm in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is ehm, spelled E-H-M.
Definition
- 1um, er expressing hesitation
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “ehm”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-H-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.